


when i wake up i'll forget everything

by drowsilybearzerk



Category: Phantasy Star Online 2
Genre: Character Death, Gen, Nightmares, Prophetic Dreams, Sarah/Xiao if you squint, episode 6 spoilers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-25
Updated: 2021-01-25
Packaged: 2021-03-17 12:40:21
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 750
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28974504
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/drowsilybearzerk/pseuds/drowsilybearzerk
Summary: ARKS operatives are no strangers to nightmares, especially not Sarah herself.But some just hit harder, and more often.
Relationships: Sarah & Xiao (Phantasy Star Online 2)
Kudos: 4





	when i wake up i'll forget everything

Sarah rarely dreams, but when she does, she is stricken with night terrors. Most relate to the day she lost her home. Matoi saved her, but the things she saw before her savior came were embedded in her memory. Her bad dreams are usually the same recurring themes -- her home, the falspawn, failing to save ARKS, dying, Luther.

But Sarah has been having a new one pop up, every few weeks, ever since the guardian returned word that Luther lived on Omega. Even after his reported death, it plagues her all the same.

It starts off the same. She’s younger, but Xiao isn’t. She’s stronger, but Xiao isn’t. They walk the halls of Mothership Xion, the corruption drained out yet washed in a golden glow. The photoners -- the incorporeal sealife that float in the ocean that  _ is _ Xion -- that  _ was _ Xion -- flow, then stutter, like a corrupted recording, like the rest of the universe is shuddering back to the same point in time.

While they walk for hours (minutes, seconds? Sarah could never keep track), they talk, but it’s in a language she doesn’t understand. And she should understand. If Xiao understands, so should she. When Xiao speaks, he sounds further and further away, and she tries to bring herself closer, but there is no closer. They’re standing together --

They were walking, but then they were standing.

“Xiao,” she says, despite herself, despite a voice in the back of her head telling her  _ not to ask, she knows the answer to this one _ . “Why are we here?”

“You could say I’m readying myself emotionally for what might be.”

His words make her blood run cold, and out of instinct, she turns around.

Luther, but not the fallen, has his hand stretched out, and darkness and fire at the tips of his fingers. She feels the weight of her lances in her hands, though she didn’t have them before, and she readies herself to attack.

Sarah moves to strike, and she’s 6 again. This is a fight she’ll lose, and she knows it.

She releases the blade, and directs it at Luther as she feels her skin burn from heat and acidity --

And she’s 12 again, weak and tired, plucked from the depths of Void Apparatus. Maria is cradling her in her arms while a young boy with blue hair and blue eyes stares at her, a frown on his face.

“Let me help her,” he says, and he takes her hand. She wants so desperately to sleep.

“Stay with me, okay?” he says. So she does.

\-- 

And she’s in the Mothership Xiao. Sarah doesn’t see Luther, but she sees Xiao begin to collapse, and runs to catch him. She’s her current age, now, and her heart sinks to feel how light he is in her arms.

His glasses are cracked and static flies off his body in blue colored sparks as little blue specs of light -- his light -- rejoin the atmosphere. He’s looking at her, but his gaze is glassy -- not at all like the boy she’d met those years ago. She tries to say something,  _ beg him not to leave, tell him it’s going to be alright -- _

Words fall out of her mouth, only to be stifled by the tension.

“Really now, even I’m getting too human… so I think I’ll take a rest, like humans do,” he says, his voice weak as he closes his eyes. 

Sarah calls his name like it will fix anything.

“Xiao,” she says.

“Xiao!” she repeats, hoping for an answer, a  _ gotcha _ , like this was supposed to be some bad prank. His lips move to say something else, but the sound doesn’t reach her. His head slumps back, unable to muster the strength to support himself anymore, and in a flash of light,

_ She calls his name one more time, like a spell to undo whatever curse has brought this on him. _

He’s gone. She claws desperately at the orbs of light that used to be Xiao, only to awake and find herself clawing at her blanket. Sarah is out of breath, her face wet with tears, and a coldness rested in her chest.

She manages to calm herself down. Her anxiety tended to get the best of her, but her dreams were far from prophetic. She’d see Xiao in the morning. He was alive, and the odds of him suffering the same fate as Xion were minimal. He’d tell her if they weren’t, right? Of course.

Everything was going to be fine.

**Author's Note:**

> written because members of my alliance were goofing off. thanks, kids! <3


End file.
